The Stars Look Very Different Today

Yesterday I woke up to the news that David Bowie had died. He had just turned 69 and had battled cancer for a year and a half, so his death wasn't surprising. 

But it was startling.

It was startling to me because David Bowie is one of those timeless people who reinvents himself so often that he has an aura of immortality to him.  

Whether a person likes his music or not, it is hard to discount his relevance to the arts. Music. Performance art. Movies. Television. It is hard to find an artist over the age of 20 that doesn't have a "David Bowie influenced me" moment. 

How does a person get those sorts of accolades from everyone from Madonna to Marilyn Manson to David Cameron (Prime Minister of England)? 

"David Bowie 1976" by Jean-Luc - CC BY-SA 2.0

How is anyone so diverse and so influential? 

This is a guy who could so convincingly switch from being Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke to Jareth the Goblin King.

This is also a guy who, in 1983, at the height of its influence, took MTV very publicly to task for not representing black artists. Bowie was willing to take a stand for what was right.

One does not just come up with the idea of selling the

intellectual property rights to one's future music collection by being brainless. Bowie did just that, and the Bowie Bond was born (and provided a 17% ROI).

 

So, how does this happen? How is someone a writer, musician, poet, playwright, actor, advocate, businessperson, revolutionary, visionary? 

It is in no small part due to the fact that Bowie was really, really well read. 

This is a guy who, it was said, read, at times,  a book a day. 

This is a guy who, when answering the Proust Questionnaire said things such as:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?ReadingWhat is the quality you most like in a man?The ability to return books.

At times it is easy to look at musicians and discount them as empty headed  performers. David Bowie was not this. He was a musician, yes, but he was also an intellectual of substance, and he got that way at least in part by reading. 

He was quick to talk about books and their influence on his life.  Taking a look at his 100 Top Books List is enough to give anyone a case of the vapors. 

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz, 2007
• A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, 1980
• The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976
• The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967

I think one of the truly powerful lessons here is that reading can be an important part of one's life. For anyone. It isn't just teachers and librarians and Bill Gates who reads. David Bowie became who he was, at least in part, because of a lifelong habit of reading.  He became someone who created and shared and influenced.

Reading shapes us. It expands our minds and opens new worlds.  It has the power to make us different. New. Better. 

Reading may not make you the Goblin King or Ziggy Stardust. Only one person could embody both of those, and that one person was David Bowie. The world is a little less bright without him.